


Hanyou Spirit

by Ladygoshawk



Series: In the Spirit of Tradition [1]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Death takes place off-screen, F/M, Gen, Inuyasha Has a Potty Mouth, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26439130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladygoshawk/pseuds/Ladygoshawk
Summary: Sesshoumaru has his future all planned out. His plans did *not* include a certain red-clad hanyou. Still, this might be...entertaining.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/Sesshoumaru
Series: In the Spirit of Tradition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961926
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

The presence he’d sensed for the last week, faint and wavering as if unsure of manifesting at all, at last coalesced a short distance behind him. He waited, weighing the aura, testing its strength, for some time before a flicker of movement suggested the time for silence had passed. He suppressed a sigh. What he felt was familiar, and he knew its presence would likely mean some form of trouble. It always had.

“ _Sesshōmaru?_ ” The sound would have drawn attention from every living being for kilometers around if it could have been heard by any ears but his own.

“Hello, Inuyasha. It has been some time.”

He kept his voice low, even, knowing it would irritate the reactive hanyō. If he would not be allowed to achieve his goal without this one, last interference, he might as well derive some entertainment from it.

“Some time? Whaddaya mean, ‘some time’? We were just fightin’ that bastard spider a minute ago! Where’s Kagome? And Sango an’ Miroku? Where’s the—”

“After all this time, you still do not use your senses, nor apply sense to the evidence they bring you, little brother.” If he had not interrupted, they might have remained there all day while the foolish boy worked himself into a lather. “Perhaps you should engage both sense and senses and actually look upon where you have found yourself.”

“What the hell is that…supposed…ta mean…” The irate demand trailed off as the whelp finally took in their surroundings. “Wait…”

They stood among the uppermost boughs of the great Goshinboku. Inuyasha occupied a thin branch near the very crown. Sesshōmaru merely stood in the air, yōki both holding him in place and concealing him from detection from below. They did not stand above empty forest, however. Instead, much of the area around the great tree had been cleared, the soil paved over, various small to medium buildings stood here and there nearby, and the ancient Bone Eater’s Well lay concealed beneath the aging boards of a well house. The place should be very familiar to his hanyō brother, even as it had become to him. He waited.

“This…is…” Inuyasha began slowly, sounding stunned. It did not last. “This is Kagome’s shrine! How did you get here, you bastard? You don’t belong here!”

The whelp had always been exasperating. Sesshōmaru suppressed another sigh. “On the contrary, the Higurashi Shrine and the land around it lie within my territory. I have more right to stand here than you do, now. You also still do not see. Look again.”

“Answer my question!”

“Use your eyes!”

Stunned silence followed that exchange. Sesshōmaru merely watched the movement of those below while he waited. It took a little longer, this time.

“What…are you… _wearing?_ ”

An impeccable, bespoke suit made by the finest yōkai tailor in Japan, but none of those words would mean anything to the boy and were irrelevant to the situation, besides. He finally turned to look at his younger brother. Red fire rat clothes, long, bleached-bone hair, ears that marked him hanyō twitching in agitation atop his head. He looked exactly as he had the last time Sesshōmaru had seen him so long ago. The expression in his eyes said louder than any words that he still did not – quite – understand his situation.

“Always, Inuyasha, you have taken a shortcut to arrive in this place and time,” he began as he turned back to regard the shrine below them. Fate had timed this interference well, at least. He could smell her on the stairs leading up to the shrine. “Unlike you, I have come here by the long road. More than five hundred years have passed since the day we defeated Naraku. I have lived through them all.”

Below, a young woman wearing grey slacks and a powder-blue sweater stepped into view at the top of the shrine steps. She carried a subdued black backpack over one shoulder, hair held in a heavy bun atop her head with what appeared to be a writing implement, and hummed tunelessly as she walked. At once the same as and yet also very different to the girl she had been during the hunt for the spider hanyō, she looked much as she had then but had matured greatly since.

Sesshōmaru inhaled deeply, savoring her scent for a moment before he nodded in her direction. “For her, eleven years have passed.”

Inuyasha made a sound like air being punched out of him. “Ka…gome… Is… That’s… Kagome. _Kagome!_ ”

The last, he bellowed in a way that reminded Sesshōmaru forcibly of the hunt for Naraku. The woman below continued across the shrine grounds, unaffected. “She cannot hear you, Inuyasha.”

“ _KAAA-GOOOO-MEEEEE!_ ”

The miko went on humming as she reached the door to the family home, slid it open, and stepped through. “I’m home!” she called out. “Is anyone here?” Then the door snapped shut again.

“Why…can’t she hear me?” The question came very close to a disbelieving whine.

Sesshōmaru shook his head briefly to try to clear the ringing in his ears. “We never learned the details. The miko told us Magatsuhi had possessed you, that you struck her and pushed her over the edge, deeper into Naraku’s body where I found her. No one saw you again after that. The Tessaiga called me to retrieve it through the Tenseiga several days after. We never found any other trace of you. We could only surmise you died the day we confronted Naraku.”


	2. Chapter 2

“S-So how come _you_ can hear me and she can’t?” Inuyasha managed to ask nearly half an hour after the revelation of his status. “What am I, anyway, besides… Uh. Dead? A ghost, or somethin’?”

“Given your yōkai heritage, it is far more likely you have become a spirit,” Sesshōmaru answered after a moment of consideration. “A protective spirit, perhaps, since your yōkai half was inu. It seems likely I can perceive you by virtue of our shared blood and my superior senses. Her power should permit the Jewel’s Priestess to sense you in some way, as well. She simply does not know there is anything to be perceived.”

The hanyō snorted derisively. “And you ain’t plannin’ ta tell her, either, right?”

“No.” The daiyōkai made a vague gesture with one hand, intended to encompass their position still high in the Goshinboku. “As she does not yet know that even I am here, there is little choice in the matter.”

“How can she not know you’re here?” the whelp demanded incredulously. “You splash yōki all over everywhere you go! There’s no way she hasn’t sensed you!”

Sesshōmaru threw a glare at the moron. “Be no more idiotic than you must, hanyō. I have concealed myself from her. The monk, slayer, and her kit were adamant that you and she had never sensed yōkai while here. Since the obliteration of all yōkai is not possible without also destroying all other living beings, it stood to reason the yōkai of her home were merely concealed. I ensured that came to fruition.”

Inuyasha scowled at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You said it’s been eleven years since Naraku. Why keep it up now? What’s the point of bothering?”

“She will complete the last of her education in three weeks’ time. A doctorate in history and folklore.” He didn’t even bother to keep the pride out of his voice as he said it. “She is already promised a position at the National Museum. Once she has begun her work there, I will reveal myself to her and tell her about you afterward. She and I will make the necessary decisions from then.”

Startlement gave way to suspicion once more. “You _and_ her? What decisions? And if all this isn’t even happening for weeks yet, what’re you doing here _now?_ ”

“For now, I stand guard.”

“Guard? For her?” Inuyasha scoffed. “This was always the safest place I ever saw. They don’t know who she is, here, and no one knows how she’s important. She doesn’t need a guard here, of any place!”

Sesshōmaru raised an eyebrow at him, amused. It took a very long, pregnant moment, but eventually the hanyō blinked, flushed, and folded his arms into his sleeves as he looked away. “Keh. How long?”

“Fifty years, now. Your packmates could not be certain of the exact timeframe. I chose to err on the side of caution.” He turned to look at the door into the family home again as her footsteps drew near from inside. “Had I known, I would have saved her father. As it happened, I only heard the news at the same time the family received it.”

“Tenseiga?”

“He had already gone beyond its reach by the time I arrived. Nothing remained to recall. It is regrettable. He was a good human.”

“Wait. You actually _tried?_ ”

“Kagome would have benefitted from his safe return. Since then, my people – human, hanyō, and yōkai – have shadowed her and her family every time they leave the grounds of the shrine.” He threw an amused look at his younger brother. “Even when _you_ went with her.”

“ _Wha—_ ” Inuyasha bit the exclamation off as the front door rattled open and Kagome stepped out. Clad in the traditional miko’s uniform, she started across the grounds toward the shrine proper. Her path took her directly beneath them.

“Okay, fine, you’ve got people protecting her and her family every time they leave here,” the hanyō groused as he watched her pass below. “Doesn’t say why you’d have anyone _here_. Doesn’t say why it’s _you_ here, or why you’re still keeping it up after everything’s over with and you’ve got nothin’ more to worry about comin’ out right. It’s all done. But you’ve got all these plans. What’s the deal? What’re you really planning?”

If he were not absolutely certain that the hanyō’s opinion, even dead, would still matter to his miko, Sesshōmaru would not have bothered with a response. Even so, he couldn’t quite keep the growl out of his voice as he answered. “I will permit no one but myself to guard here, where she makes her home.”

He held up a hand to forestall an interruption. “As for why she requires a guard even now, humans have an especial affinity for recording history in the way which most benefits the winning side’s particular agenda. Internal politics, nationalist sentiment, call it what you wish, they are tools used to manipulate other humans into leaving power with those who already possess it. History is one of many levers applied to put those tools into place, and humans are not often much concerned with whether their tale retains even the flavor of the truth or not.”

“Yeah, so what? They’ve always done that,” Inuyasha broke in sourly.

“The Priestess of the Jewel of Four Souls lived through a significant part of history that has been entirely erased, and though our numbers are diminished, yōkai have _not_ disappeared as humans prefer to believe. Trained as she now is to find and document empirical proof of what she already knows for the truth, a number of papers she has published during the course of her higher education have cast ‘well-known’ history in a much less favorable light.” The faint growl in his voice became a little more vicious. “A number of politicians and business magnates who have in some way staked their reputations and profit-making schemes on falsified histories she has exposed beyond recovery have expressed dissatisfaction with her unwillingness to ‘leave well enough alone’. One or two have even sent… _associates_ …to discuss her research with her.”

“They… Wait, what?”

Well, the hanyō never had been mentally agile. “The first few claimed to have orders only to intimidate her into recanting her research or dropping the line of inquiry entirely. When they disappeared, others were sent to stop her research at any cost. Strange, isn’t it, that those have also disappeared?”

Inuyasha stared at him. “They’re trying to kill her. Over weird crap she wrote in a _book?_ ”

Sesshōmaru suppressed yet another sigh. “Your understanding of my meaning is close enough. Most of those I or my people have reported dealing with, yes. There was an Associate Professor from her University who believed himself far closer to her, personally, than she had agreed to, and a classmate or two. A few overzealous journalists, as well, and one excessively jealous female whose male apparently had his eye on the miko. Most of the journalists and one or two of the others approached her in locations away from here, but all the rest made their attempts here on shrine grounds and I was ultimately the one they encountered.”

“What about the people sendin’ ‘em?”

“Suffered public ruin or mysterious, unexpected death. Quite tragic.”

“Uh, riiiight. If you say so. Heh, she’s still as much trouble as she always was.”

“She does have a remarkable propensity for finding herself in adverse situations.”

“Is that Hojo kid still comin’ around?”

The daiyōkai snorted derisively. “She sent that one permanently on his way in her second year of high school. I have never heard the details of his final transgression, unless it was the basket of health foods and remedies he arrived with, but she threw him out of the house and told him never to return. At the top of her lungs. It was quite impressive. I am told he entered an exchange program and has attended University somewhere abroad.”

“Guess that’s good.” Inuyasha watched for a few moments while the miko below them swept the grounds, still humming softly to herself. “So, I notice you didn’t really answer my question, before. Just part of it.”

“Hn.”

“And you don’t plan on it, either,” he concluded sourly. “Keh. Fine, whatever. I’ll figure it out eventually.”

_You would already know if you had paid attention, little brother,_ Sesshōmaru thought but would not say. Let the whelp figure it out. It would give him something to consider. And would probably be highly amusing when he finally put the pieces together.


	3. Chapter 3

They watched in silence for some time as Kagome finished sweeping the grounds, greeted shrine visitors, and occupied the gift booth to sell trinkets and charms to those who came. The sun was well on its way to setting when Inuyasha scowled again.

“So, what now, we just sit around staring while she does…this? Nothing?”

“This is her life. If I wish it protected, I must be present.”

“I can’t believe this is how _you_ spend your time.”

“I have chosen to cultivate patience rather than find an undead priestess to chase after when I become bored.”

Amusingly, the hanyō’s face flamed red at that. “That was different! I owed Kikyō for the way she died, and—”

“And you are easily distracted when your duties bore you. Or the sun rises. Or the stars hang in the sky.”

Inuyasha’s ears flattened in irritation. “You’re an asshole.”

“So you have said.”

“You know, you’re sure going to a whole lotta trouble over one human,” he groused. “Settin’ guards on her an’ her family, standin’ _personal_ guard over her when she’s home, keepin’ track of that stupid school thing she’s always doin’, makin’ plans for when she’s finished with it. You even talked to Sango an’ Miroku about where and when she came from. What do you think you’re gonna get outta all this? ‘Cause you never do anything unless you see some kinda gain from it.”

 _So very close, Inuyasha._ On the ground, Kagome rose from her seat behind the counter in the gift shop and began setting the shutters in place. Soon, she would go inside with her aged grandfather for the evening meal and Inuyasha would begin a very long-term lesson in patience.

Even as he thought it, his miko exited the gift shop and moved to the shrine proper. “Grandpa, are you ready? It’s time to close up.”

The family’s patriarch joined her a few minutes later, shuffling along at a fairly reasonable rate considering he had seen nearly nine decades. Humans, Sesshōmaru reflected, cannot have been intended by the gods to survive more than a century. Their bodies seemed far too fragile, and yet the ferocious rate at which their technology improved had extended their collective lifespans so long already…

 _Too late for my Rin,_ he thought with a touch of bitterness. He took a slow, deliberate breath. _Yet she lived long for the time, and her descendants have chosen to remain with me. Perhaps, someday, she will return to me as well. It is worth it, despite the length of a human life. Father must be laughing at me._

Not the first time he’d had every one of those thoughts, unlikely the last. As his gaze fell on the miko guiding her elder in to their meal, the bitterness vanished. It _would_ be worth it this time, too. He would make certain of it. His plans, long since laid to account for her age and lifespan, for her power, for _everything_ , would not fail.

Dusk became true night, and even the sounds of Tōkyō traffic gradually faded into the deep quiet of night. As much as a city of its size ever did, at least. Inuyasha jumped down to the ground after the last late shrine visitor had departed. For lack of any reason not to, Sesshōmaru joined him, though he settled silently on a bench beneath the Goshinboku and kept his yōki furled close to prevent anyone detecting his presence. It would not do to permit a slip that could prematurely reveal his existence to his miko and risk disrupting the final weeks of her education.

Hours later, the hanyō had paced a widening spiral outward from the Gods’ Tree and back inward to the bench, then out and back again several times. Eventually, he leapt up on a root to touch the much reduced but still visible scar in the bark where he had hung so long ago. His claws made no sound against the wood, nor did his footsteps disturb the dust on the ground. Sesshōmaru did not think he had yet considered the full implications of his new existence, nor what they might mean for his presence on the shrine.

Still, he had remained uncharacteristically silent for a considerable time. Perhaps he _had_ used the interlude to consider his new nature.

“More than five hundred years…” the hanyō mused softly, still brushing his fingers over the Tree’s scar. “Wouldn’ta thought this’d last that long.”

Sesshōmaru’s gaze drifted to the eastern sky. The horizon had begun to lighten, though only one with eyesight as keen as his would be able to perceive the change. Not long now, and his miko would depart her home for the University campus. His people would take up their watch at the bottom of the shrine stairs, and he would meet his driver a few minutes later to return to his home for a few hours’ rest before he must tend to his own daily routines.

“Look, you still don’t make any sense.” Inuyasha’s voice broke into his thoughts, irritation clear in his tone. “None’a this is necessary anymore.”

“None of what, little brother?” the daiyōkai all but purred, fully aware the whelp must be on the verge of realization. He deliberately kept his gaze on the eastern horizon, though his attention had gone to the red-clad whelp in the periphery of his vision.

“All this shit you’ve done all this time!” He waved a clawed hand in a vague gesture that encompassed the shrine and their mutual presence. “Naraku’s dead! I gotta assume the Jewel’s gone, too. All the trackin’ her down and guardin’ her and keepin’ track of her life… Ya just spent all night sittin’ around doin’ nothin’! The important crap’s done, so whadda you care? there’s no point. If I didn’t know better, I’d’a said you’re treatin’ her like…she’s…your…”

 _Ah, there it is,_ Sesshōmaru thought with great amusement. Moving woodenly, as if his body refused his command, Inuyasha turned to face him. Amber eyes widened comically, jaw hanging, ears flattened tightly against his head, he stood in silence with his arm still raised as though touching the Tree for a long, increasingly comical moment.

“No.” The word sounded strangled, airless. Sesshōmaru suppressed a chuckle. The boy squeezed his eyes shut tightly, blinked once, twice, and shook his head hard. His arm fell limply to his side. “No. No, no, no, no, no, _no, NO!_ ”

Unable to resist, Sesshōmaru turned his head to look directly at the whelp, raising his eyebrow and allowing just the slightest upward curve of his mouth to show his amusement. “No what, Inuyasha?”

“Th-That’s not… Y-You can’t… Th-There’s no _way_ …” He shook his head again, then lifted both hands to clutch desperately at his hair. “No way. _No. Way!_ Not happening! No chance in _hell!_ ”

The daiyōkai let his other eyebrow rise, smile widening a little more. “You will have to make some sense if you wish me to respond.”

Suddenly, Inuyasha jumped down from the root where he’d stood, legs planted aggressively apart, one hand fisted at his side, the index finger of his other hand speared violently in Sesshōmaru’s direction. “First of all, quit looking at me like that, it’s creepy as hell! And! Kagome! Is _not_ for you! You keep your filthy, disgusting, poison-dripping paws _off_ her, do you hear me?! There is _no way_ in heaven _or_ hell I’d ever let you put your dirty hands on her! _Never! Happening! YOU TRIED TO KILL HER, YOU BASTARD!_ ”

And he was off, bellowing and screeching denials and accusations at the top of his lungs. The meltdown was _spectacular_. Sesshōmaru tuned the noise out and watched, fascinated, while the whelp’s ears gyrated atop his head and his face turned so crimson it outdid the firerat cloth he wore. He’d never gotten _this_ much of a rise out of the boy even when they’d feuded over the Tessaiga half a millennia ago!

Alas, all good things must end. While Inuyasha gesticulated, the sun broke the horizon and rose into a clear sky. Bits and snatches of sleepy conversation reached his ears from inside the Higurashi home every time the hanyō paused to inhale. Idly, he wondered whether the whelp actually needed to breathe, or whether taking in air was simply a habit. Either way, a fortuitous pause to pant as though exhausted allowed the daiyōkai to hear his miko’s footsteps as they approached the door. He took the opportunity to lean forward, bringing his face within a meter of the hanyō’s.

“You are wrong, little brother,” he rumbled pleasantly. “I want her, and I will have her _for my mate_. You may assist me or not, I do not care, but if you attempt to hinder me I will have you exorcised and she will never know you were here.”

He straightened without waiting for a response, flexing his yōki to carry him into the Goshinboku’s branches just as Kagome stepped into the open once more. Inuyasha gaped up at him for a moment, surprised, then noticed the young woman making her way to the stairs. That bought another moment of startlement, but then he bolted after her.

“Kagome! Hey, dammit, you gotta hear me!” the hanyō bellowed at her. “Kagome! _Kagome!_ ”

Sesshōmaru followed behind both at a leisurely pace, lowering himself back to the ground to walk when he judged the distance sufficient to prevent any chance of her noticing him. “She still cannot hear you, Inuyasha,” he said mockingly, soft enough she would not hear. “And there is something you should know about guardian spirits.”

Inuyasha half-turned to glare over his shoulder, still trotting after Kagome as she started down the stairs. “Back off, asshole! She’s not yours!”

“Not yet. But you should know that most often, guardian spirits are bound to an item, to a person…”

The hanyō jerked suddenly, stopped cold as if he’d impacted a wall at the very top of the stairs beneath the torii gate. He hung there for a moment, eyes glazed, and then toppled backward to lie on the pavement, blinking dazedly. Sesshōmaru strolled the last few steps to lean over him.

“…or to a _place_. It would appear _you_ are bound within the perimeter of the Higurashi Shrine, little brother.” He straightened and stepped under the gate to move down the stairway, leaving the prone hanyō to find his feet on his own. “Enjoy your day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is now first in a Series: "In the Spirit of Tradition"!

**Author's Note:**

> Much and many thanks to Drosselmeyer for helping me out with this thing by catching spaghetti. You are an angel! <3


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